Most teams track share of voice, which is the percentage of articles that mention your brand compared to competitors. Useful, but incomplete. It tells you where you show up, not how much of the conversation you actually own.
When we analyzed 57 companies, 15% were “Narrative Underdogs,” capturing less than 40% of the mentions in their own coverage. Even when the article is “about” them, competitors often dominate the narrative.
What is the difference between share of voice and share of mentions?
Share of voice measures what percentage of articles mention your brand compared to competitors. Share of mentions measures what percentage of total mentions you capture within those articles. You could appear in 60% of articles but only earn 33% of total mentions because competitors are referenced more frequently when they do appear. One tells you where you show up. The other tells you whether you matter once you are there.
Why does high article count not always mean strong narrative control?
When Delve analyzed 57 companies, 15% were Narrative Underdogs capturing less than 40% of mentions in their own coverage. A single mention counts the same as ten in traditional share of voice tracking. Presence is not prominence. A competitor can appear in fewer articles and still dominate the conversation by commanding more mentions per piece.
What are the four types of narrative control and what do they mean for PR strategy?
Narrative Leaders hold 80 to 100% share of mentions and rarely see competitors intrude. Narrative Owners hold 60 to 80% with manageable competition. Narrative Battlers sit at 40 to 60%, fighting for roughly equal mention share. Narrative Underdogs fall below 40%, meaning competitors dominate even in articles nominally about them. Companies with the highest share of mentions consistently report stronger sentiment, averaging 0.72 versus 0.52 for Underdogs.
What is the Volume Trap and how do you know if you are in it?
The Volume Trap is high article count combined with low share of mentions. You are everywhere, but competitors get more mentions per piece. About 5% of companies fall into this category. It is the classic busy but ineffective scenario where raw coverage volume masks weak narrative control.
How does share of mentions connect to sentiment and message pull-through?
More narrative control correlates with more positive coverage. Articles that mention a brand 8 to 10 times reliably include key messages, product details, and quotes. One-mention hits rarely move the market. Repetition builds memory, and memory builds brand. Tracking share of mentions reveals whether your coverage is actually doing strategic work or just logging presence.
Measures the % of articles that mention your brand vs. competitors.
Blind spot: A single mention counts the same as ten. Presence ≠ prominence.
Measures the % of total mentions within all articles in your competitive set.
Why it matters: It reveals who truly controls the story within each piece of coverage.
You appear in 60% of articles but only earn 33% of total mentions. You’re visible, but not central. Delve makes this visible by going beyond keyword counts to understand context, frequency, and narrative weight.
Imagine two companies in the same competitive space, both tracked across 100 articles:
| Metric | Company A | Company B |
|---|---|---|
| Articles Mentioned | 60 | 40 |
| Mentions | 300 | 400 |
| Share of Voice | 60% | 40% |
| Share of Mentions | 42.9% | 57.1% |
At first glance, Company A seems to be winning with more coverage. But in reality, Company B shows up less often, but when it does, it commands far more of the conversation—57.1% of all mentions vs. 42.9% for Company A.
Data sourced from Delve–learn more.
Most tools only count appearances. Delve uses AI-powered analysis to read each article the way a comms strategist would:
This shifts PR analysis from coverage logging to narrative intelligence. It’s the difference between knowing you're in the room and knowing you're leading the conversation.
We analyzed 57 companies across multiple market types and found they fall into four distinct categories based on their share of mentions:
| Category | Share of Mentions | % of Companies | Avg Sentiment | What It Means |
|---|---|---|---|---|
|
Narrative Leaders
|
80-100% | 15% | 0.72 (Positive) | Complete narrative control. Competitors rarely intrude. |
|
Narrative Owners
|
60-80% | 35% | 0.68 (Positive) | Strong control with manageable competition. Competitors mentioned but don't dominate. |
|
Narrative Battlers
|
40-60% | 35% | 0.65 (Neutral) | Fighting for control. Competitors get nearly equal mention share. |
|
Narrative Underdogs
|
<40% | 15% | 0.52 (Negative) | Competitors dominate even in "your" articles. |
Key Insight: Companies with higher share of mentions also report stronger sentiment—averaging 0.72 vs. 0.52, a 38% gap.
Data sourced from Delve–learn more.
When we plot article count (x-axis) against share of mentions (y-axis), patterns emerge:
Data sourced from Delve–learn more.
More narrative control = more positive coverage. However, sentiment isn't just a byproduct of mention frequency, it's a signal worth measuring on its own terms. If you're not yet tracking sentiment alongside share of mentions, choosing the right sentiment analysis tool is a practical next step.
Articles mentioning you 8–10 times reliably include your key messages, product details, and quotes. One-mention hits rarely move the market.
Repetition builds memory, and memory builds brand.
Increasing share of mentions starts with understanding what's generating noise versus signal in your coverage. Teams dealing with high monitoring volumes often find that media overwhelm gets in the way of acting on the data. Building the right filtering system is what makes share of mentions actionable, not just measurable.
Share of voice tells you where you show up.
Share of mentions tells you if you matter once you’re there.
Across 57 companies:
And the companies with the highest share of mentions consistently see stronger sentiment, clearer messaging, and greater narrative authority.
If you’re only tracking share of voice, you’re only seeing half the picture. In today’s media environment, that missing half is often where the real strategy lives.
70% or higher indicates strong narrative control. 50-70% is acceptable but suggests room for improvement. Below 50% means competitors are getting equal or more attention in your own articles—a red flag.
Share of voice measures what percentage of articles mention your company compared to competitors (article-level). Share of mentions measures what percentage of total mentions you capture within those articles (mention-level). [1]
For example: You could appear in 60% of articles in a competitive set (60% share of voice) but only represent 40% of the total mentions across all those articles (40% share of mentions) because competitors are mentioned more frequently when they do appear.
Highly competitive or rapidly emerging markets face the toughest environment (average 48-55% share of mentions), while event-driven coverage and niche markets have the easiest time (95%+ and 69-73% respectively). The more crowded and comparative the market, the harder it is to maintain narrative control.
No. 95-100% share of mentions indicates you're the central focus and competitors are rarely mentioned—the ideal state. This is most common for event-specific coverage, product launches, and companies with strong category leadership.
Yes. Traditional media monitoring tools count article volume and keyword frequency but cannot distinguish between subject mentions and competitor intrusion within the same article. Delve's AI-powered analysis automatically identifies the subject entity and tracks all competitor mentions to calculate true share of mentions.
[1] Delve. Choosing the best sentiment analysis tool for PR success
